Thailand

This is what greeted us, thankfully, after a 22 hour sleepless trip: juk with thousand year old egg, fresh ginger, green onion and essential white pepper. The spot was one of the ubiquitous bare walled roadside restaurants in Bangkok. It was 2 AM and the family that ran the place was chopping onion next to us as we ate.

Pics below from a place on a relatively quiet street in Chinatown I would have never found on my own. The fish was simple and amazing. I think I ate 75% of the pieces of garlic by myself, each paired with a piece of fish and a few pieces of chili.

Shark fin soup. As good as I had hoped.

The crab that soon became part of my dinner (below).

Bangkok mall food courts can be amazing. For one, they're ice cold which is basically a godsend even in what they might refer to as Winter in Bangkok, where it's only around 95, with about 1000% humidity. These pictures are from the Siam Paragon food court which, in addition to housing a really nice grocery store, features a pretty good variety of non-Thai vendors (if you get sick of Thai food) as well as about 15 or so Thai/Southeast Asian vendors with the usual standbys you'll recognize on any trip to Bangkok. Some of these are featured below, beginning with the shaved ice we shared at meal's end. One of my chief regrets, besides not making a reservation early enough for the seafood buffet at Lord Jim, at the Oriental Hotel, is not eating any of the Thai-Indian food they serve in these food courts. Hopefully there will be a next time.

There's a place somewhere a bit north of the Banglamphu historic district, a place I hope I can visit again if I'm lucky enough to make it back to Bangkok again. The name translates as Grandma's Place and, in a number of ways the name seems appropriate. The restaurant exists in a house, with the dining room separated into at least two small rooms, all decorated with vintage black and whites like the two below. There's a karoake machine that any patron may utilize. There's also a stack of books sitting by the cash register with at least one book by Noam Chomsky stacked atop a bunch of other books on contemporary affairs. They go out of their way to let patrons know they do not use MSG and, moreover, that MSG=death. Anyway, the food is really good, even without the MSG.

One of their versions of larb.

Crispy fried catfish with apples, a dish we were told has become somewhat out of fashion because of health concerns.

Pork with kimchee.

One of the sour/sweet soups I can't get enough of.

MK (below)is a pretty popular chain in Thailand. You can find it just about anywhere, particularly at malls. Their draw is sukiyaki, served after you look through a huge menu of meats and veggies and determine exactly what you want in your sukiyaki. The hot pot is fine, but the most interesting and entertaining part comes at the beginning of every hour, when the candy-striperesque waitstaff comes out on the floor in unison and performs some kind of choreographed welcome dance. It's weird, believe me, and you can just see the looks of "I can't fucking believe we have to do this again," on the girl's faces, even through the smiles.

The pictures below are from a little roadside stand in northern Thailand outside Chiang Rai. Mountain food.

One of our days in Chiang Mai, the northern Thai town of temples and ex-pats, was spent partly at a pretty forgettable cooking school, where we "learned" to cook things that either (a) we already knew how to cook or (b) could have figured out how to cook in a few seconds. One of the best parts was the trip to the market chronicled below. The first picture is some kind of pickled fish we bought at the market, sampled immediately, and soon discarded for fear of sodium overload.

Thai eggplant.

They occasionally produce rice in Thailand.

Solidified pig's blood, used quite a bit in Thai soups.

Our driver took us to a pretty nice lunch spot one day on the western side of Chiang Mai, with some of the basic northern specialties.

More papaya salad, always welcome.

A variation on one of my favorite Northern Thai dishes, nam prik noom, this one with eggplant and pureed chiles eaten with fried pork skins, cucumbers and cabbage.

Spicy jackfruit just like the dish at Hollywood's Spicy Thai BBQ.

Sitting alone on a dark road off one of Chiang Mai's main roads was this somewhat atmospheric place. It was exactly what I had been hoping for, especially the cheesy band that played through the meal.

Fried worms as an appetizer. Salty, a bit crunchy and bit chewy.

Mussaman curry, fried chicken, soup, the everpresent nam prik noom and a couple of other dishes I can't remember.

Bird's nest soup. Breakfast.

A few blocks away from the King's palace in Bangkok is a nice little market...

Fried fish cakes with marinated cucumber.

Chinatown, besides hosting a line of jewelry and trinket shops I could do without, has a bit of street food. More than a bit. My favorite may have been the snack below. A betel leaf wrap with lime, chile, toasted cocoanut, ginger, purple onion, and a sweet tamarind-shrimp paste sauce. I think it may have made me sick that night but, whatever, it was worth it. I'm going to make these at our next dinner party. Remind me. To wash it down I had a bag of salty plum juice which, though extremely pleasantly memorable, may have been the real culprit of my stomach issues. It's the ice, I guess.

My favorite fruit in Thailand (below), the mildly sweet Fa-rong, which shares the name with the Thai word for foreigner. Supposedly the version of Far-ong originally brought to Thailand had curly red hair on top, like foreigners. One of our friends told us that when they interview rural Thai girls on television and ask them what their dream is they almost without fail reply that it is to "marry a fa-rong."

Getting a bit pretentious at a temple.

Breakfast one morning, sticky rice with pork wrapped in banana leaves.

My favorite restaurant of the whole trip may have been this little spot, deep in the dusty suburbs of Bangkok. The royal family of Thailand, at least some of them, are fans. Besides eating giant baked shrimp which I somehow forgot to photograph, we enjoyed a number of fish dishes, some with kaffir lime leaves and chile among other things, one with whole green peppercorns, as well as a som dam (salad) made with apples instead of papaya.

I can't forget to mention durian (below). I tried it before in Malaysia, and really couldn't stand it. My father in law convinced me it was better in Thailand. I'm not sure if it was better or not. I don't think I hate it, but I have no real desire to eat it again.

Lastly, some of the best meals we had were served in one of our host's offices in between massages up the street. Pictured below is the first yen-to-fo we had. Two weeks later, can't wait to get back.

Yen-to-fo with pork blood.

for some non-food pictures head to another blog I contribute to:quadruplekegstand.blogspot.com